Analysing the impact of COVID-19 on the digital strategies of South African retailers

Journal of Economic and Financial Sciences

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Analysing the impact of COVID-19 on the digital strategies of South African retailers
 
Creator Shenjere, Faith Middelberg, Susanna L.
 
Subject COVID-19; digital disruption; digital strategy; e-commerce; retailers; South Africa.
Description Orientation: COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge in e-commerce with retailers having to embrace digital technologies and develop, implement and/or update digital strategies.Research purpose: This study aims to analyse the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the digital strategies of four JSE-listed retailers.Motivation for the study: The e-commerce industry in South Africa is still developing, and retailers need guidance on how to plan better for and manage new customer behaviour introduced by the pandemic.Research design/approach and method: A multiple case study approach was followed to collect qualitative data from the integrated reports of four JSE-listed retailers for the financial year-ends of 2017 until 2021. A newly developed digital strategy hexagon framework was used as the measuring instrument.Main findings: The findings indicate that the retailers with a pre-COVID digital strategy were better positioned to address challenges associated with the pandemic and also displayed the six components of the digital strategy hexagon framework in their integrated reports.Practical/managerial implications: E-commerce businesses could use the framework to design a digital strategy and/or build on their existing digital strategy.Contribution/value add: A novel digital strategy hexagon framework was designed, which could be used by businesses to build or improve their digital strategy.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor National Research Foundation
Date 2023-11-23
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion —
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/jef.v16i1.864
 
Source Journal of Economic and Financial Sciences; Vol 16, No 1 (2023); 10 pages 2312-2803 1995-7076
 
Language eng
 
Relation
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https://jefjournal.org.za/index.php/jef/article/view/864/1657 https://jefjournal.org.za/index.php/jef/article/view/864/1658 https://jefjournal.org.za/index.php/jef/article/view/864/1659 https://jefjournal.org.za/index.php/jef/article/view/864/1660
 
Rights Copyright (c) 2023 Faith Shenjere, Susanna L. Middelberg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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